


blue

by jensung



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, References to Depression, Romance, Sad Lee Jeno, Short One Shot, Teen Romance, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 04:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17501837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jensung/pseuds/jensung
Summary: Jaemin stains Jeno's life shades of blue and red. It's only after he's gone that Jeno wishes the blue would stay, and the red would disappear.





	blue

**Author's Note:**

> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/jensoy)   
>  [twt](https://twitter.com/jens0y)

It’s times like these when Jeno wishes Jaemin was here with him. It’s cold out, the winter frost biting at Jeno’s nose, but there’s no one to wrap a scarf around his neck, to buy him hot chocolate that burns the tip of his tongue. Jeno is alone, and he’s cold, but he can’t find the will to care. It hurts, the snow stinging like blades against his exposed skin, but he thinks he deserves it. He needs to feel this pain, and he needs to understand how it feels for life to bite back. He’s alone, and now, he thinks he needs to keep it that way. There’s no one for Jeno, not anymore, and not since Jaemin left.

Jeno sits on the bench at the park he and Jaemin used to play on when they were children, small feet leaving invisible footprints along the fresh layer of bark. He remembers swinging on the swingset, the way Jaemin’s small hands dug into his back before he pushed him toward the sky, and suddenly Jeno’s whole world is blue, blue, so blue.  
It’s the kind of blue that Jeno sees on summer days, the warmth of the sun seeping through the thin material of his t-shirt as he licks at a cherry popsicle, the flavor staining his lips red. His fingers are sticky, and he hates it, but he feels good. There’s no school, he’s playing, and he’s with his best friend. Jaemin takes a seat next to him. He’s eating a blue raspberry popsicle, and Jeno wrinkles his nose at his friend’s choice.

“Blue raspberry isn’t even a real flavor.” he points out, frowning.

Jaemin laughs. His teeth are stained blue, but for a second, Jeno still thinks he looks pretty. “I don’t care. It tastes good.”

Then he drags the tip of his popsicle down Jeno’s cheek, and Jeno jerks back, yelping. His popsicle falls to the ground. It stains the bark red.

Jeno pouts at him. “You made me drop my popsicle!” he complains. 

Jaemin has the decency to look guilty, but it only lasts for a moment before he’s grinning again. “I’ll buy you another one!”

“It’s not the same.” Jeno’s saying, but Jaemin is already dragging him away. He takes one last look at his cherry popsicle melting beneath the shadow of his swing. The color spreads. Jeno’s world turns red.

Jaemin’s favorite color was blue. Jeno doesn’t even know this until their freshman year in high school, when Jaemin wears a navy blue suit that mixes well with his dark brown hair. He looks handsome under the blue light of the dance, and the way the shadows wash over his face make Jeno’s heart flutter, but he doesn’t know why, just yet.  
Everything feels too fast and too slow at the same time. Jeno is perpetually stuck in everything blue. This blue is the blue of beginnings and endings, the discovery of something new and wonderful but terrifying all at the same time. Jeno is scared because he hates change, but he can feel it coming, and it terrifies him. He wants things to stay the same, unchanging and comfortable, so that he can keep looking at Jaemin as his best friend and nothing else, not whatever he’s becoming. 

He and Jaemin both have dates, two sweet girls with long dark hair and pretty faces, but something doesn’t feel right. Jeno feels happy when he dances with her, but something tells him that it’s not the happy he should be feeling, that everyone else is feeling tonight. Instead, he watches Jaemin dance with his date, their bodies close, and he feels sick to his stomach, a twisting, ugly feeling wrapping around intestines and making his throat burn, tighten, writhe. He excuses himself from his date, and throws up in the bathroom. Jaemin comes in not long after and runs a soothing hand down his back, but Jeno swats his hand away. He’s cut his palm on some shattered glass on the bathroom floor, and blood drips slowly from the open wound. It leaves red droplets on the tiled floor, and as Jeno moves to hold his hand over the toilet bowl, it turns the water a deadly red. It makes Jeno feel sick again, and his stomach lurches and before he knows it he’s throwing up again, and all he can think is that he hates the color blue and he wants Jaemin to disappear, just for a moment, so that he can compose himself and forget this ever happened. But Jaemin doesn’t go, despite Jeno’s pleas, crouching next to his friend and stroking the nape of his neck comfortingly. Jeno lets out a sob, because the blue won’t go away, and all he wants to be is alone.

 

Jaemin had never been one to leave his friends alone, and Jeno finds that it was himself in particular that makes Jaemin stay. It’s his senior year of high school, and it’s graduation day, and Jaemin kisses him square on the mouth. His lips are warm and move gently against his. Jeno knows his cheeks are painfully pink, the tips of his ears burning red, but all he can see is blue. Jaemin is the warmest blue Jeno has ever tasted, and spreads from his tongue down to the tips of his fingers, and suddenly Jeno’s entire world is blue again, but it’s a different blue from those summer days and baby blue skies. It’s an entirely different blue that Jeno can’t describe, because it belongs to Jaemin and nothing else. It’s Jeno’s first kiss, but not Jaemin’s, but Jeno feels like he’s the only person in the world when Jaemin hugs him close and tells him he’s loved him for years and he’ll love him for a thousand more.

Jaemin turns his entire world blue, and Jeno comes to love the color. Suddenly, blue is everywhere. It’s not a color anymore, but a feeling. He’s lying in bed with Jaemin in their shared apartment when he tells him this. Jaemin laughs. He asks Jeno if he knows that blue is his favorite color. Jeno says yes, but that’s not why Jaemin turns everything blue. He doesn’t know why, he tells him. But he likes it. Jaemin smiles, and kisses him.

It’s a different kiss than the ones they’ve shared before, and Jeno is a little horrified when a moan slips out of his mouth as Jaemin’s tongue slips past his lips. Jaemin grins, and kisses him harder. His hands slip under Jeno’s shirt, his thumb rubbing gentle but firm circles into his boyfriend’s hips before travelling even further up, making Jeno blush. It tickles, and Jeno giggles before Jaemin’s lips travel down his skin and he mouths at Jeno’s neck. It’s wet and warm but Jeno feels soft and comfortable, even though his entire body is burning as if it’s on fire. He remembers briefly hearing his middle school science teacher telling his class that fires that burn blue are the hottest, and he can’t help but think that describes Jaemin perfectly. He’s hot, in all and every meaning of the word. Jeno gasps against Jaemin’s touch, his breath stuck in his throat, as a desperate whine climbs up his spine, shaking and trembling, and Jaemin pulls him even closer, until Jeno is sitting in his lap, his hands tangling in Jaemin’s hair as he kisses him. When he pulls away, Jaemin’s pupils are blown, and his eyes are glazed, his cheeks warm and pink and Jeno feels an uncontrollable urge to kiss his face, so he does, landing wet, loving kisses on his boyfriend’s forehead, cheeks, neck, nose, eyelashes. He falls asleep against Jaemin’s chest, his heartbeat loud against his ear, and Jaemin’s arm looped loosely around his waist. Everything is so perfect, Jeno thinks then. He hopes it’ll never end.

~

Jeno’s sitting alone on a bench in the winter, and nothing’s blue unless it’s in his memories. Even then, it’s not the warm blue he’s come to love, but cold and dull, a little blurred, lacking the feeling that often came with the blue he often misses. The red is still there. He remembers the vividness of the popsicle stain on the pale bark of the playground, and how the cut on his hand pooled at the bottom of the porcelain bowl at Homecoming freshman year. He remembers the pinkness of Jaemin’s lips and cheeks and how warm he’d felt, but he had been blue, not red. He had never been that simple. Jeno feels sick. His heart hurts, and he wishes it would stop completely.

He sees Jaemin for the last time on a Monday morning. He wakes to Jaemin getting dressed for his eight am lecture, fingers carding through his freshly dyed chestnut hair. He smiles at Jeno, and Jeno’s eyes flit down to his pink lips. Jaemin grins even wider, and leans down to kiss him, cupping his jaw with won hand as his mouth melds to his. Then he leaves. Something feels cold, wrong, but Jeno shakes it off. He gets up and pulls on some sweatpants and one of Jaemin’s hoodies, running a hand through his hair and grabbing his glasses from the bedside table. When he gets to the kitchen, he notices that Jaemin’s left a folder on the table. He reads the label and realizes that it’s the paper Jaemin’s been working so hard on. He pulls on some sneakers, grabbing the folder from the table and his keys and rushing outside to catch Jaemin before it’s too late.

He sees him as the light turns red, and people begin walking across the street. He calls out his name, and Jaemin turns, his eyes lighting upon the folder in Jeno’s hands. His expression brightens, and he turns back.

The light is red when the car speeds across the intersection. The light is red when Jaemin disappears, and the light is red when Jeno drops the papers, and they scatter into the wind. One lands on the road, and it’s immediately soaked with red.

Jeno feels sick.

He stumbles to his boyfriend, to the boy he loves. People have stopped, hands covering their mouths and eyes wide in shock and horror. The car has stopped, the windshield shattered and the driver knocked out, blood spilling from a cut on his forehead.

Jeno collapses next to him, shakes his body, cries his name. The road is stained red, and it’s the same shade as Jeno’s cherry popsicle. Jaemin’s cheeks are still pink, his skin still warm when Jeno presses two fingers to his neck, and when Jeno screams, raw and painful from his throat, he doesn’t wake up. Jeno’s hands are stained red as he grasps Jaemin’s face, leaving smears of blood streaking down his boyfriend’s face. His eyes are open, and Jeno sees the same coffee brown color he’s always loved, but they’re cold.  
There’s a bitter taste on Jeno’s tongue. 

He’s cold. It hurts. He stays.

At the funeral, his casket is closed, but Jeno still feels sick when he imagines his face. His lips are no longer pink, but stained blue, the same blue as Jeno sees on summer days. There’s no color in his cheeks. It’s disgusting, and it hurts to think about but he doesn’t stop, he can’t stop, and his whole body aches, as if it had been him who was flung across the pavement, his skull that had cracked against the cold, hard ground.

Jeno thinks he hates blue.

~

His friends come when the stars are supposed to appear, but the winter air scares them away, and instead the sky is blank and cold and empty. Renjun pulls off his jacket and wraps it around his shoulders. Donghyuck pulls on gloves, pulling his fingers through one at a time. They sit next to Jeno and look at the sky. Jeno's still waiting for the stars but he doesn't think they'll come. All he sees is red.

**Author's Note:**

> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/jensoy)   
>  [twt](https://twitter.com/jens0y)


End file.
